


The Things We Do For Love

by fragrantwoods



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen, Origin Story, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2676356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragrantwoods/pseuds/fragrantwoods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On bsg_epics, the Inspiration Day prompt last week was to sign up and have others leave prompts for fannish things that you don't usually do. My challenge was to write something about Gaius Baltar's childhood or background that explained how he became the man we see in canon.</p>
<p>Follows "The Baltar Boy" a few years later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things We Do For Love

 

“It’s a load of bollocks, if you ask me. He’s needed right here, ‘specially with the harvest comin’ on.”

“Now, Julius...we can get the Hamilton boy to tend to things. He’s not getting on with his Da, and his mum says he’d stay on for a bed and his meals, and a bit of pocket change.”

Gaius listened to his parents scrap back and forth, the scholarship letter dead center between them on the table. If he was few months older, the old man couldn’t hold him back with anything more than guilt and rage, and Gaius had been dodging those for years. Unfortunately, his quick mind had pushed him to be ready for university while he was still technically a child.

He snorted at that. He hadn’t felt like a child since his father rousted him out of his sickbed with a clip to the ear and a lecture about how the cows didn’t care if he was sick or well. He’d been ten.

“Oy, that’s what I need...another angry boy in the house what can’t get along with his elders.”

He could hear the gurgle of the beer pail as his da poured another glass. His legs were starting to ache, a combination of standing still as a statue and the last pangs of growing pains. But this was his future they were rowing about...he’d see this through.

_Unless...oh, gods._ Seeing his mother touch his father might be his breaking point, and there she went, standing behind the ill-tempered farmer, beginning to rub his shoulders.

His mum was still a somewhat beautiful woman...Gaius had been quantifying and qualifying feminine beauty since the summer of the student teacher, when he’d spent hours trying to examine what he found so compelling about her. His fumbling excursions with the local girls had been more edifying than gratifying...he learned quickly what he didn’t find appealing. There was a golden ratio he was drawn to, proportions of bone and flesh that satisfied what he would later define as his esthetic tastes.

His da didn’t seem to appreciate that beauty, only what she could do for him. Now his mum was whispering in that cauliflower-shaped ear, and his da was beginning to lose that stony stubborn look.

Gaius’s mind began new calculations as he tried to distract himself from his parents’ crude cuddles, still locked in place waiting to hear his future decided.

There was a formula to desire and power, a way to figure sex times flattery minus shame equals getting what you want. There was probably more to it than that, and he made mental allowances for the unknowns that he would surely learn once he was away from here and a bit older.

He was still lost in switching out variables ( _What would work with men? Where did money enter into the picture? How could he increase his value in this area?_ ) when his father stood up and muttered “Not in the kitchen, then, woman. Have a bit o’ decency.” and tugged her towards the stairs.

Gaius slid away from the doorway like a ghost, slipping out the front door before his ears could be assaulted with squeaking bed springs. Mucking out the paddock suddenly didn’t seem so bad.

The scholarship documents were still on the table when he made his way back to the house, his father’s unschooled scrawl a sloppy mess on the crisp paper. Gaius ruffled through the forms. The signatures were in every place they needed to be to get Gaius off the farm and off this frakking backwater planet.

“Is that what you needed, then, dear?” His mother gave him a wry smile and didn’t meet his eyes. His father’s off-key humming grated on his nerves as it drifted downstairs.

_You frakking that angry lump of a man to buy me passage off Airelon? Is that what I needed, to know that’s how the worlds work?_

“Thanks, mum. I’ll do you proud, I will,” he said. “Both of you,” he added grudgingly at the last.

He quelled the twisting in his stomach and put on an agreeable face, making more mental notes, adding another variable to his formula. Gaius looked at the forms again, the ugly inked letters.

His education, it seemed, had already started.

 


End file.
